Who We Are

Design History Dossier (DHD) exists to reshape how design history is understood and taught. It moves away from isolated, canonical narratives and toward understanding design as an interconnected system embedded in social, political, cultural, economic, scientific, spiritual, and environmental contexts. This vision is grounded in four commitments that shape everything we publish, teach, and investigate.

To Expand the Canon
DHD challenges the Eurocentric, modernist narratives that dominate design education, advocating for a more equitable and inclusive accounting of whose work, ideas, and practices shaped graphic design.

To Center Students as Knowledge Makers
DHD positions students not as passive recipients of design history but as active researchers, storytellers, and contributors who help build that history.

To Surface Hidden Histories
DHD embraces the overlooked, the forgotten, and the ignored as primary sites of learning, treating unexpected sources not as footnotes to design history but as entry points into it.

To Pursue Critical Inquiry
DHD's guiding question is "What made this?" a philosophy that every designed artifact is a product of intersecting forces worth investigating.

What We Publish

Design history is not a finished story. DHD publishes the work of educators, students, and researchers who are actively adding to it by uncovering what's been missed, questioning what's been assumed, and imagining what a more complete history might look like.

Instructors
We publish the work of educators and educator-researchers who are rethinking how design history is taught. Whether you have developed a classroom framework, conducted original research, or designed a teaching approach that challenges the canonical narrative, we want to hear from you.